That Giant Plant in Ciscoe's Yard

My merry band of four or five blog readers know that I like to take pictures of Ciscoe Morris's yard. I have not seen any of his TV or radio segments and I have not read his book (books?), so I don't know much about him, other than, apparently, he likes to say "oh la la" a lot. But he lives near a friend of mine, so I like to go check out his yard from time to time.

Anyway, Chuck (who knows far more about these things than I do) has commented a couple of times about a plant in Ciscoe's yard. When I took a photo of it in April, Chuck suggested that it might be a castor bean plant.



But then when I took photos in May, he thought it was probably something else. (He's right.)





This sunny morning I decided to stay in bed instead of going to the gym, and I leafed through the Seattle edition of the May Sunset magazine, which has an interview with Ciscoe Morris:

What is your current plant obsession?

I've got a lot of them. Right now, I'm crazy about Tetrapanax papyrifera 'Steriodal Giant' (also known as giant rice paper plant). It really is humungous. It has 4-foot-wide and 4-foot-long maple-like leaves on a 15-foot-tall plant. It looks so tropical.

Mystery solved!

Bainbridge Garden Tour

We went to Bainbridge on Saturday afternoon to attend the garden tour on Sunday morning.

While waiting for the ferry, we went to Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe.







OK, on the island now. This is where we got married, in my in-laws' backyard.



This is a nice place to drink wine. Last night we had some 2005 vintage red Bordeaux. Yum.



OK, back to the real topic -- the Bainbridge in Bloom tour.























They're all waiting to hear Ciscoe Morris speak. Since this blog is sort of about not meeting Ciscoe Morris, I get back on the bus.



I chose almond plum and chocolate.















Back at the garden tour headquarters, they're selling this plant that Chuck calls the Harry Potter plant. And they're sporting those purple blossoms he told me about too.



On the way home, we stopped at Rosedale Nursery. I'll have to show you photos sometime.

Ciscoe Morris's Yard in Late August

Last night I was in the neighborhood, so I took a few shots of Ciscoe Morris's yard.

Ciscoe Morris's Garden in August

It's been a while since I last visited Ciscoe Morris's garden.

The banana plants look great.























Then we headed to our friends' house for a birthday barbecue.



We stayed until it got dark.



Then, after we'd enjoyed hanging out with flowers and friends and toddlers and birthday cake and kitties, we headed down to one of the rougher bars in the Georgetown area to see a friend's band.



Some motorcycle event was going on.





But these bikers weren't like the espresso-sipping, spacesuit-clad BMW guys who hang out at Smarty Pants. They seemed more like real bikers, like the Harley guys who handled security at the Rolling Stones Altamont show or something.



There was some murmuring about shootouts that other chapters of this club had been involved in. (This rumor seemed all the more exciting when cops paid their second visit to the bar in the space of two hours.)

Later on, when I looked them up online, I found out that other chapters have been involved in two "massacres" in the last year alone. And even the local club has recently been charged with "racketeering, kidnapping, assault, and drug and firearms violations."



I also found out what the "1%" on their jackets means.

Full-patch members wear a diamond-shaped patch that reads "1%." The "1%" symbol is derived from a statement by the American Motorcycle Association that 99 percent of the country's motorcyclists are law-abiding individuals.

Ooh la la!